August 15, 2005

Israeli Forces Encircle Outposts Defying Order to Leave Gaza

By STEVEN ERLANGER

GAN OR, Gaza, Aug. 15 - Thousands of Israeli policemen and soldiers moved to surround the Israeli settlements of Gaza today, warning residents that they have until early Wednesday to leave before they are pulled out of their homes.

The officers, some of them wearing new blue caps emblazoned not with their service insignia but with the Israeli flag, presented a show of force but avoided confrontation with the settlers and their supporters, many of them young and emotional.

But there were some fierce arguments between settlers and those who have moved in from the West Bank in the last few weeks. There were angry clashes as some settlers demanded that moving vans and the army be allowed to enter this settlement and Neve Dekalim to help them pack up and move, while the younger West Bankers attempted to block the roads and sometimes slash the tires of official vehicles with knives or puncture them with "ninjas," nail-studded blocks of wood.

The gates to most of the settlements were closed to officials, and the soldiers and police said they would not attempt to open them now, but negotiated throughout the day with community leaders in places like this one and Morag to allow in some officers to deliver the required notices and moving vans to ease the evacuation.

In some cases, the officers simply handed the notices to the head of the settlement to distribute. In the case of some particularly militant settlements, like Kfar Darom, which made clear that the police and army would not be welome, officers did not even approach.

As the searing heat of Gaza bore down, there were tearful scenes of remonstration, prayer and conversation between the residents, many of them in sweat-soaked orange T-shirts, and the troops, some of them quietly admitting that they would like to be elsewhere, fighting crime and terrorism instead of confronting their fellow citizens.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and four smaller settlements in the West Bank marks the first time that Israel will pull out of areas that were conquered in the 1967 war and are considered by the Palestinians to be a part of a future state. But many of the settlers here regard Gaza as part of the biblical land of Israel granted to the Jews by God, and the pullout as a betrayal of its finest citizens by the state.

Moshe Weiss, Bulgarian-born, shouted at a commander of the police special forces: "Nazis in black are standing facing me. You look just like the photos of Nazis facing Jews! They killed my whole family in black suits like this!"

The commander, Meir ben Yishai, pulled Mr. Weiss aside and tried to calm him, saying, "Moshe, Moshe, this is the uniform of the state of Israel's special forces."

Commander Yishai said moments later: "It's what we're expecting, and we won't break our work. That's the way he feels, it's his choice to see it that way. And he's shouting at people who feel and who are hurt with him, but who have a job to do."

Stopped on a roadside, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the southern commander of the army, said he intended to start slowly. "We have all the time in the world today, so we'll go and try to talk to them, and offer our help to leave," he said. "We have two days, and then we are in a very different mode."

This part of the operation has been named "A hand to brothers," marking a period for residents and demonstrators to reflect after their presence here became illegal at midnight Sunday, and for the army and police to provide help if asked.

But on Wednesday morning, army and police officials say, special teams of army and police will move in large numbers into settlements, their order and number to be determined day-to-day, and escort or force any remaining civilians to leave.

Armored vehicles and bulldozers will quickly push over fencing around settlements, avoiding the gates where the demonstrators sat today, and seal each settlement. Some smaller settlements, even if they do more than passively resist, will be overwhelmed with superior, though unarmed forces.

"There is no enemy here," said a senior police official near Morag. "We will do everything with sensitivity, but we will do it. It's impossible for the state to fail.

This evening, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel gave a short televised address to the nation, saying that he initiated the pullout, however painful, because of changing realities. "I concluded that this action was vital for Israel," he said.

He praised the settlers as noble pioneers and the army and the police for showing "sensitivity and patience." The pullout "has caused severe wounds, bitter hatred between brothers and severe statements and actions." Mr. Sharon said. "I understand the feelings, the pain and the cries of those who object. However, we are one nation even when fighting and arguing."

It is the Palestinians who must now "bear the burden of proof," he insisted. "The world awaits the Palestinian response - a hand offered in peace or continued terrorist fire. To a hand offered in peace, we will respond with an olive branch. But if they chose fire, we will respond with fire, more severe than ever."

The army hopes publicly to finish the process by Sept. 4; some believe it will be concluded more quickly, especially if Palestinian militants do not disrupt the process with mortar or rocket attacks.

Today, the Israeli cabinet took its last vote authorizing the pullout from all 21 Gaza settlements. The discussion was brief, and the vote was 16 to 4, said the housing minister, Isaac Herzog.

"It's a military operation now," Mr. Herzog said in a telephone interview. "On Tuesday night, they can decide for themselves which settlements to evacuate."

Mr. Herzog said that temporary housing would be available to everyone and that at least 50 percent of the residents will have left on their own before Wednesday.

"But it's absolutely clear to me that there will be very difficult moments," he said, especially with these first two generations of settlement youths, born after 1967, who have been brought up in a different culture of patriarchal, communal and religious leadership.

"The big question is whether this Gaza action will alienate this generation or not," Mr. Herzog said. "I personally believe they will overcome it. But the question is also whether their rabbis will pump into their heads that the state betrayed them, or whether they will be more responsible."

As painful as this Gaza pullout has already been, the 9,000 settlers here are dwarfed by the 220,000 living in the West Bank beyond the 1967 boundaries, let alone another 200,000 living in east Jerusalem, annexed by Israel but considered illegal settlers by much of the world. More than 80,000 settlers live in the West Bank beyond the route of the Israeli separation barrier - about nine times the number in Gaza.

In Neve Dekalim, Sima Gal stood with orange-shirted children behind the closed gates of the settlement as police cleared away a makeshift road block and stood in a loose formation in front. She was evacuated from Yamit in the Sinai in 1982, the last Israeli settlements vacated, she said, "and I still see in my eyes the army breaking down our doors." She had come here from Jerusalem to show her solidarity with these settlers and her disgust with the government.

"My father was born in Leipzig and he's 82 today," she said. "He says it reminds him of very dark days and very dark laws. It's not nice to compare, but he says he can't help himself," Mrs. Gal said.

Here in Gan Or, residents nearly came to blows with their young supporters as Dani Dimri, his eyes wild, shouted at them to let the army enter to help him pack his house. Finally, the youngsters relented.

Marc Zell said: "Everyone is on edge. We have a lot of respect and good feelings for the army and to some extent for the police. But we don't know what they're planning. So when people ostensibly wanted the army to come in and allegedly help them to move, we worried it could be a trick."

But in principle, said Mr. Zell, every family must have the right to make its own choice. "The families here can't be coerced," he said. "They've been through hell, with the terrorism and the way the government has treated them."

Yuli Edelstein, a Likud legislator who moved to nearby Gadid to support the Gaza settlers, said: "There's a lot of tension, and some families just want it to be over," he said. "Every family has to have its own answer."

In Neve Dekalim, too, there were angry scenes before long-time residents convinced short-time supporters to allow moving vans into the settlement.

"You've been here only a month and we've been here 20 years!" one bearded man shouted, as people pointed fingers and faces grew even redder in the heat.

By the gate, teenaged women in orange were singing about their love for the army and weeping. Some men, in prayer shawls and tefillin, or phyllacteries, the leather-bound boxes with straps used in prayer, swayed in the heat, chanting, moving from side to side in their sandals. One man sat against a wall, his tefillin at an angle to his forehead. Next to him, another man sat, his mirrored sunglasses perched on his forehead at the same angle, a portrait of two Israels, here united, most likely in vain, against the decision of the country's democracy.